Google Inc. says it is abandoning its ambitious program to drive down the cost of renewable energy, one of seven major initiatives canceled by the Internet giant this week as it looks to focus on its core projects.

Launched four years ago through Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, the so-called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE < C) initiative included a team of engineers dedicated to researching renewable energy technologies, with a focus on solar energy.

The Google program invested in Brightsource Energy and eSolar, companies working on concentrated solar power projects, and also invested in potentially breakthrough technologies.

“At this point, other institutions are better positioned than Google to take this research to the next level,” the company announced on its corporate blog. Google posted the results of its energy research online, encouraging other companies to use it to advance the renewables industry. The changes come as Google, the world’s top search engine, faces increasing competition in mobile phone technology and social media.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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While solar thermal plant costs are expected to “decline steadily as plants get bigger”, pinpointing how costs can otherwise be reduced remains a challenge, due to the presence of many variables.

CSP Today’s latest report, ‘CSP Parabolic Trough Report – Cost & Performance’, provides indispensable lessons on how to navigate this complicated landscape.

According to the report, a staggering 40-45% of the overall lifetime cost of the plant is attributable to capital cost – land acquisition, construction and commissioning. Of the total investment cost, the report highlights solar field and operation and maintenance (O&M) as being most expensive.

The burning question is how, and where, to make savings. Common belief dictates that increasing plant size would automatically reduce component costs. But the report challenges this theory, saying that while enlarging solar fields may lower the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE), it also entails greater thermal losses.

The report’s author notes this would require increased pumping “leading to higher electricity consumption, reducing the net power output”. Instead, the report advises the industry to focus on the reduction of component prices such as mirrors, absorbers, hydraulic actuators, HTF piping and in particular, collectors.

Another complication with regard to cost forecasting is the dependence of concentrated solar power on raw materials such as steel, aluminum, molten salts and concrete. Fluctuating prices have a direct influence on LCOE.

The report, which provides a comprehensive breakdown of costs and variables, stresses that the material chosen therefore affects the type of technology implemented, which in turn affects salvage value. Certain components (for example, those using extruded aluminium) can make recycling a “profitable business upon decommissioning”.

The report’s authors emphasize the potential of investment into research and development to create technologies capable of reducing O&M and LCOE costs. Active research topics include Direct Steam Generation, Compressed Gas HTF, Advanced Storage Systems and Large Aperture Troughs.

Read more here.

Article by Francesca Boothby, appearing courtesy CSP Today.

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Italy is looking to get a solar energy boost from Enel Green Power, which just announced plans to construct two large concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. But Italy’s still got a ways to go to catch up with the CSP world leaders.

Solar thermal power plants have their supporters and skeptics. They offer utility-scale power from solar energy, providing the opportunity to produce more electricity from clean, renewable energy than would be produced on rooftops alone. But they come with a pretty hefty price tag, too.

After years of development, such plants are starting to get off the drawing board. Gemasolar recently announced that the first 24/7 solar thermal power plant in the world was completed in Spain, a 19.9-MW concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. Now, Italy’s renewable energy giant Enel Green Power (EGP) has announced plans to build two CSP plants of a similar size.

While EGP currently generates about 80% of its power from wind energy, it is looking to increase its solar energy share now that utility-scale solar is becoming cheaper and more viable, and supported by the EU.. (and I imagine Italy’s rejection of nuclear power doesn’t hurt either).

The two projects EGP announced on Friday are a 30-MW plant and a 25-MW plant in Italy. Both projects rely on EU funding, which is not yet guaranteed but expected.
Concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSP)

What is CSP, you ask? CSP plants “use mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area.” The concentrated light is turned into heat that is then used to drive a heat engine (often steam turbine) that is connected to an electrical power generator.

Over 1 GW of power capacity from CSP plants are online around the world so far, but as I said, the option is picking up.. steam. CSP plants with a total capacity of about 17.5 GW are currently under construction worldwide.

Spain currently leads the world in power capacity from CSP plants (582 MW) and the U.S. is second with 507 MW. While the U.S. is leading in power capacity from plants under construction (8.7 GW), Spain is second (4.46 GW), and China is third (2.5 GW). ENG’s announcement certainly steps up Italy’s figures in this arena, but the country still has a ways to go to catch up to these three CSP leaders.

Article by Zachary Shahan, appearing courtesy Earth & Industry.

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Last week was a good one if you happen to own a natural gas well. Two reports on the outlook for natural gas, both in the U.S. and worldwide, gave a glowing assessment of the fuel’s future prospects. The International Energy Agency (IEA) cheekily titled its report, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” The conclusion: global gas use will rise, in one scenario, by more than 50 percent by 2035. So, yes, it would seem the “golden age” is nigh. Meanwhile, the U.S.-centric report from the M.I.T. Energy Initiative, “The Future of Natural Gas” blasted critics who claimed that gas, when it comes from shale formations, is worse for the environment than coal.

Of course, your impression of these reports may differ if you’re a climate change activist rather than, say, a Chesapeake Energy shareholder.

The IEA report, for example, concluded that increasing use of gas puts greenhouse gas emissions on a trajectory to stabilize at 650 parts per million, which would bring a long-term temperature rise of 3.5 degrees Celsius. This figure, by any measure, is an unacceptably high level of warming and made Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm, very unhappy: “Absent a high CO2 price,” Romm wrote, “gas displaces as much low-carbon electricity as it does high-carbon coal.” But there are many reasons to think Romm and IEA are being overly pessimistic. While it’s clear that an elevated carbon price – for example, a carbon tax – would incentivize the adoption of renewable energy, gas could, in the near term, mean the end of coal as a major fuel source. It can encourage the adoption of renewables along a realistic timeline – one that allows green technology to catch up with green ambition. Here are some reasons why:

1. Natural gas enables renewable energy. Natural gas power plants can fire up quickly and adjust their power output rapidly. That makes them the ideal dance partner for wind and solar, which are variable energy sources. There may be a time in the next few decades when renewable resources don’t need fossil fuel backup, but we’re not there yet.

2. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) mandate renewables. A growing number of states and countries are requiring a certain percentage of wind, solar and other non-fossil fuel on the electrical grid. In California, for example, that target is 33 percent renewable energy by 2020. In the European Union, the target is 33 percent by 2020. As long as legislators hold the line on those mandates, natural gas can’t crowd out renewables.

3. Integrated Solar Combined Cycle is crazy efficient. Modern natural gas plants working in combined cycle – a configuration that uses waste heat to drive a steam turbine – have efficiency ratings in the upper 50 percent/60 percent range. Introduce concentrated solar power (CSP) to the equation and efficiency can shoot up to 70 percent. How? CSP uses mirrors, or heliostats, to direct sunlight that boils liquid in a central tower. The steam then drives a turbine to create electricity. In this new configuration, the CSP can share the steam turbine and increase the efficiency of the system without burning any more fuel. General Electric, this magazine’s sponsor, has teamed up with CSP pioneer eSolar to introduce this technology.

4. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is advancing. CCS is often discussed in conjunction with coal but the technology, which involves storing carbon dioxide from power plants underground, has perhaps even more potential for natural gas

This technology actually works – it’s been tested and proven at multiple sites – but is still too expensive to deploy at scale. While some in the environmental community think utility-scale CCS is a Macguffin, others believe it has enormous potential for decarbonizing energy if costs can be brought down.

5. Methane emissions from natural gas can be curbed. Recent attacks on natural gas have focused on leaks of methane, the principal component of gas and a potent greenhouse gas, during its lifecycle – the drilling, transportation and end use. While the most dire scenario of lifecycle emissions has been discredited by some researchers, methane emissions remain a problem. But it’s possible to recapture the leaking methane and there is an incentive for industry to do it, since this is fuel that can be sold.

6. Gas plants can, and likely will, knock out old coal plants. This is a point made in the IEA report but it’s worth stressing. In the U.S., tightening emissions regulations will make coal plants expensive to retrofit and natural gas plants, which emit about half the carbon dioxide, will likely pick up the slack. The emissions savings in the United States could be 150 million tons of carbon per year if 66 gigawatts of coal plants are replaced, according to one estimate. Just Thursday, one utility, American Electric Power of Ohio, announced plans to shut down five coal-fired plants by 2014 to comply with the new guidelines.

7. There is a lot of idle natural gas capacity on the grid. Those power plants are of a relatively recent vintage – most were built in the 1990s – so they’re efficient. This means that the emissions savings from natural gas are already built into the system, they just need to be activated. M.I.T. researchers believe total carbon emissions in the U.S. could decrease by 8 percent if natural gas plants are utilized at a higher level.

8. China has a lot of natural gas, which is a good thing. For all the talk about China’s renewable power ambitions, right now coal is the superpower’s fuel of the future: gas is expected to represent 63 percent of primary energy consumption by 2015. Continued dependence on coal will have disastrous consequences both for carbon emissions and for pollution in China’s already smoggy megacities. Tapping China’s vast gas resources could help make cities cleaner and electricity generation less carbon intensive.

Article appearing courtesy Txchnologist.

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I just had a very interesting conversation on one of my favorite topics: solar thermal, or concentrated solar power (CSP). I came across Ahura Energy of Campbell, CA on the fantastic online resource OnGreen.com, and spoke with Dr. Fareed Sfard, the company’s CEO, who boasts over 20 years experience in the Solar industry.

Because we have no NDA in place at this point, Fareed needed to speak at a high level. But if what I was told is correct, the company’s patented Concentrating Solar System, that can be used in both utility scale and rooftop deployments, has a huge cost advantage over competitive approaches. “The system” (whatever this eventually turns out to be) moves the reflective and refractive elements without motors or electric actuators.

“But how?” I asked innocently. I could hear Fareed laughing politely. “That’s the secret sauce,” he chuckled. “In a given space, it produces 350% more power compared to traditional solar systems at one third the cost per kilowatt-hour.”

“Well, Dr. Sfard, I know some people at Ausra, which, of course, was sold last year to Areva. I’m sure I could arrange a conversation, if you’re interested in selling or licensing your technology.”

“That would be possible, though they see us as a threat,” he allowed.

“I would hope they do, sir! That’s a good thing,” I replied. “In my experience, that’s the impetus behind most deals. Until business people are threatened, there’s no motive to deal with the problem,” I replied.
We’ll see where this goes.

Interested parties may wish to contact Fareed; if you do, expect to find an extremely bright and charming guy. But don’t expect him to give up the recipe for the sauce.

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The Calico Solar project, abandoned like a sinking ship by original planners Stirling Energy and Tessera Solar, has acquired a new owner.

The Calico project came up against a smallish band of Native Americans and lost (sounds like Custer’s battle all over again). The turning point was not an environmental icon like the fringe-toed lizard, but the fact that the Quechans considered the land the repository of their sacred history.

K Road Power, a company so new it is still building its website, has promised to put the first 750 megawatts (MW) of solar power into solar photovoltaic (PV) technology; that is, solar panels made either from crystalline solar cells or thin-film solar material, but most likely the latter based on costs.

Only 100 MW of Phase II will be developed into concentrating solar power, or CSP, via the use of the newest generation of SES SunCatchers (designed and built by former project owner Stirling Energy Systems).

According to William Kriegel, K Road founder and CEO, the switch – from all CSP to almost all PV with just a taste of CSP – will insure funding, reduce environmental impacts even further, and provide low-cost solar to help meet California’s renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, which mandates 33 percent of electricity from renewable resources by 2020.

Kriegel carefully avoided mentioning the one salient fact that has us concerned: will the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management need to reevaluate the project? And, if so, is PV that much of a step up, as far as the Quechans are concerned?

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How large can a Photo Voltaic (PV) solar farm be? It, of course, depends, on the available land space and the efficiency of the solar cells involved. Sarnia Solar Facility, deemed the world’s largest Photo Voltaic solar power station, has just opened in Canada.

Located in Ontario, it has a capacity of 80 MW, 20 MW above Olmedilla PV Park in Spain, which so far has held the title as the largest of its kind in the world. Sarnia is expected to generate 120,000 MWh per year, or enough power for 12,800 homes. For large-scale generation, Concentrated Solar Power plants like SEGS, have been the norm but recently multi-megawatt Photo Voltaic plants are becoming common. Completed in 2007, the 14 MW power station in Clark County, Nevada, United States and the 20 MW site in Beneixama, Spain are characteristic of the trend toward larger photovoltaic power stations in the United States and Europe.

Altogether, solar power in 2008 makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. energy, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The nation now has just two large-scale solar thermal systems — one 354 MW set of facilities has run continuously in the Mojave Desert in California for about 20 years, and another 64 MW plant came online in Nevada last year. When it comes to solar photovoltaics, the largest system in the US so far is the 14 MW plant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

The new Sarnia station is a partnership between Enbridge Energy and First Solar, which provides thin-film panels as opposed to silicon ones.

“Enbridge will sell the power output of the facility to the Ontario Power Authority pursuant to 20-year Power Purchase Agreements under the terms of the Ontario government’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program”, the company said in an official statement.

The Nellis Solar Power Plant is located within Nellis Air Force Base in Clark County, Nevada, on the northeast side of Las Vegas. The Nellis solar energy system will generate in excess of 25 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually and supply more than 25 percent of the power used at the base. The system was inaugurated on December 17, 2007.

Occupying 140 acres (0.57 km2) of land leased from the Air Force at the western edge of the base, this ground-mounted solar system employs an advanced sun tracking system, designed and deployed by SunPower. The system contains approximately 70,000 solar panels, and the peak power generation capacity of the plant is approximately 13 MW AC.

Yet more is planned. Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio earlier in October 2010 announced a deal to turn 500 acres of reclaimed strip mine land into one of the nation’s largest solar farms, open two solar component manufacturing plants in Ohio, and generate enough electricity from the sun to power 25,000 homes.

Columbus-based American Electric Power signed a deal to purchase the electricity generated by the solar farm over the next 20 years and invest $20 million in the project in Muskingum County east of Columbus.

So Sarnia may be the biggest right now but larger facilities are in the planning.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy ENN.

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A market analysis of the U.S. solar industry predicts that nearly 1 gigawatt of added capacity will be installed in 2010, a 114 percent increase from last year. About 314 megawatts were added during the first six months of the year, according to the report by the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade organization. And with a major concentrated solar power project and several photovoltaic projects expected to come on line during the second half of the year, the report predicts about 944 megawatts of new capacity will be added during 2010.

Of that new capacity, 866 megawatts will come from photovoltaic technology, according to the report. While the fastest growth during the first six months of 2010 occurred in California and New Jersey, nine other states saw installation of more than 10 megawatts. The group cites a fall in module prices, federal incentives, and state targets for renewable energy as critical factors in the growth of solar power installation.

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After nearly a decade of delays, the largest wind farm in the U.S. is finally moving forward in one of California’s remaining premium wind resource regions, a spot where the Tehachapi Mountains touch the Mojave Desert in southern California.

Developed by New York-based Terra-Gen Power, the project is expected to grow to 3 gigawatts (GW) over the next eight years, and features turbines manufactured by General Electric and Vestas.

After California incubated the first wave of wind generation projects in the ’80s under the leadership of former Governor Jerry Brown (who is now running for governor again this year) both Texas (9,708 MW) and Iowa (3,670 MW) have blown ahead and now generate more wind power than California (just 2,739 MW.) The Alta Wind Energy Center will produce nearly three times as much power as the current largest wind project, and will allow California to reclaim its leadership role in promoting wind power by boosting the state’s current wind capacity by 25 percent.

Not only will this first-phase 1,550 MW wind project be the largest wind project in the entire U.S., but the transmission system designed to bring this clean electricity to market is also the largest new transmission development to date in the U.S. A key factor in allowing the mega-project to move forward was over $1 billion in financing which came together this past June.

The key to allowing the project to move forward after ownership changes and lingering opposition to the project delayed implementation was the completion of a new transmission line last year, the first major expansion of the state’s grid in more than 10 years. This gigantic project is expected to start delivering clean electricity to Southern California Edison in early 2011.

California is also making its mark on the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) front. Developed by Solar Millennium, LLC, a subsidiary of Solar Trust of America, the Blythe Solar Power Project won approval from the California Energy Commission just last week. The project site is located in an unincorporated area of Riverside County, California.

The proposed project would use parabolic trough technology where parabolic mirrors are used to heat a transfer fluid which is then used to generate steam. Electricity is produced from the steam expanding through steam turbine generators. The project’s proposed 1,000-MW output will be generated by four independent 250-MW units.

Having received formal approval from the CEC, the Blythe Solar Power Project must now secure a “record of decision” approving the project’s right of way grant from the federal Bureau of Land Management, which is expected this coming fall. The company is also actively pursuing completion of financing with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Guarantee program for the first phase of the project, representing approximately 500 MW of generating capacity.

This is the third large CSP project approved by state agencies over the past few weeks. In August, the CEC approved NextEra’s 250 MW Beacon project—the first large solar project to be approved in the U.S. in two decades. Earlier in September, the CEC also approved Abengoa’s 250-MW Mojave Solar Project. By the end of September, they are expected to vote on BrightSource’s 370-MW Ivanpah project, Tessera/Stirling’s 750-MW Imperial Project and NextEra’s 250-MW Genesis Project.

All of these CSP projects are scheduled to go before the CEC for decisions by the end of the year in order to qualify for federal stimulus dollars.

Article by Peter Asmus, appearing courtesy Matter Network.

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Even outsiders know that the solar energy industry has experienced huge growth during the past few years. This is particularly true of 2009, where solar energy prospered in spite of a worldwide recession. In the U.S., this prosperity is largely due to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

This Act, also called ARRA, the Stimulus or the Recovery Act, provides a 30-percent tax incentive for residential renewable energy installations (through this year).  It also provides the same level of incentive for building owner/manager solar initiatives, and delivers the funding either as a tax rebate or an actual cash grant, depending on the owner’s “tax appetite.”

The Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA, in April also reported strong growth in spite of the recession, noting that solar capacity – in both the PV and concentrating solar power (CSP) venues – increased by 37 percent. This, according to an Ernst and Young report, because venture capitalists invested $1.5 billion, or 63.8 percent more, in solar energy during the second half of 2010.

Where Does the U.S. Stand Globally?

At the end of 2009, the U.S. stood at fourth place globally in terms of solar capacity installed. With 2.09 gigawatts (GW), it ranked only behind Germany (9.79 GW); Spain (4.01GW); and Japan (2.68GW).

With more than 23 GW of solar capacity currently on the drawing board in the U.S., and approvals recently acquired for 1,250 megawatts (MW) of that capacity – (Beacon, 250 MW; Abengoa, 250 MW; Blythe, 1,000 MW) – the U.S. could easily surpass Germany within the space of two or three years.

And a Marketbuzz 2010 report from Solarbuzz, targeting just the photovoltaic portion of the solar energy industry, saw total global PV installations at 7.3 GW, or 20 percent more than 2008.

The Big Players in Solar

So who are the biggest players in this solar renaissance? According to Fortune Magazine, one is Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar, which ranks seventh on the list of 2010’s fastest-growing U.S. firms. After that, one has to drop down to No. 69 to find another solar firm experiencing similar growth, namely Trina Solar. This is, experts say, because the period of growth is now being redefined by a period of intense consolidation.

Other big players in the news include Hawaii-based Rising Sun Solar, which made Inc. Magazine’s Top 500 for 2010. And for the faces attached to this growth, look no further than Greentech Media’s March 2010 Solar Summit, which saw such influential solar players as Andrew Beebe (VP, Suntech), Felicia Bellows (VP, Tessera NA), Dr. Terry Bailey (President, Soliant), and Daniel S. Alcombright (regional VP and GM, Solon NA).

Various events during the year have also highlighted some key players. One was EXPO Solar 2010, held in January, which saw global electronics giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics exhibiting their solar cells and announcing mass production in 2010.

Presenting during the same expo was Hyundai Heavy Industries, which dropped the solar glove, so to speak, by challenging other suppliers to meet its benchmark of $1 billion in sales and the role of a key global solar energy player by 2014.

Beyond that, the big players – like the big companies – are still emerging, as solar energy prepares to overtake fossil fuels with grid parity, or the point at which solar energy becomes as cheap as coal or oil in terms of electricity costs.

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